Dear Teen Me, from Author Gloria Oliver (PRICE OF MERCY)

Dear Teen Me,

Life is about changes…

You were too young to remember much of what went on when Mammy y Pappi (Mom and Dad) got divorced. And living in the jewel of the Caribbean, the beautiful island of Puerto Rico, offered so many distractions – with its sparkling blue waters and white sandy beaches, the majestic old Spanish forts like El Morro, the tropical forests of El Yunke, the cobbled streets of old San Juan, and the year round warm weather. Snow was only something you’d seen in movies and came out of a spray can once a year to decorate the metal-tinsel Christmas Tree.

Puerto Rico is where all your relatives live – Abuela and Abuelo (grandma and grandpa), Mamacita (Little Mother – our other grandmother’s preferred form of address), several Tios y Tias (aunts and uncles), and even more cousins. And though it’s a property of the United States, the island is steeped deeply with Spanish culture, even the main language is Spanish, with English taught as a second one at school.

Sure, Mom is dating people, but though she’s single, she has four kids in tow (you and your three younger brothers). How many men would be willing to make a long time commitment with that many kids already hanging on? You won’t have room to worry about it much anyway. Not until the Rallies where she’ll team up with Tio Jimmy to run. Not until she meets Butch.

Before you know it, they’ll be married. It’ll take a little getting used to, okay, maybe a lot, but it’s only the beginning. You’ll never quite understand why it was that the oldest of your brothers, Jorge, had to be sent away to Ohio to live with Grandma, Butch’s Mom. Years later you’ll find out Jorge was dyslexic, and that was part of it, but he’d also been the man of house before Butch disrupted things. Maybe the new guy got jealous – not that he’d ever admit it. Maturity never does quite ripen in that man.

In another year, the whole family will follow Jorge to Ohio. You’ll get to experience all sorts of new things – some good, some not so much. You’ll see snow falling from the sky for the first time, you’ll make snowmen, snow angles and snowballs. You’ll love Grandma and her little dog Suzy. She’ll introduce you to soap operas – Days of Our Lives, One Life to Live, and General Hospital. You’ll also find out real mashed potatoes aren’t the same as those you love from Kentucky Fried Chicken. You’ll learn what it is to be truly cold. You’ll see tall pine trees, oaks, and maples for the first time up close and experience the brilliant colors of fall. You’ll discover stew, iced tea, and pots of pinto beans with bacon and sweet cornbread.

Waves of homesickness will strike you at the oddest times and places. You’ll terribly miss the foods from home, like tostones, mangoes, quenepas, guayabas, amarillitos fritos, pastellon the amarillo with white rice, and more! (Take heart though, some of these you’ll have again when you move to Texas later.) There’ll be the shock of finding out Vincent Price’s voice is not the deep one used in the dubbed Spanish translations you’ve seen on TV, but rather high and squeaky.

When you move to Ohio, Tony Perez will be a player with the Cincinnati Reds and everyone will ask you if you’re related to him. They won’t know that the name Perez in Puerto Rico is like Smith in the states.

You’ll stumble in those first days, sure. Like watching a film in the gym at school and turning excitedly to your new friend and talking about it only to realize you’ve been speaking in Spanish the whole time and she can’t understand you.

You’ll also encounter your first bully, a big jock whose arms are longer than his torso, and picks on you because you’re a girl, and a Puerto Rican or Boricua. But more importantly, you’ll accidentally discover the power of WRITTEN WORDS. A cute, made up certificate saying the bully is gay will get opened by others when you ask it to be passed down to the only friend you actually meant to see it. And they’ll laugh, and they’ll point, and they’ll show it to him and he will be embarrassed and humiliated and threaten you that he’s going to get his sister to beat you up. And you’ll stare at him as you realize what’s just happened, how the crowd can turn on you in an instant. But, more importantly, you’ll learn how words have power and should never be abused if you can help it.
The bully will never bother you again.

And take heart, Butch will eventually be out of the picture, by his own actions. Though by then, unfortunately, some damage will have already been done – Mom will have told him of things you said to her in confidence, things Mom thought she could fix by telling him, and she was wrong. It is a betrayal that will hurt you deeply, but I doubt it felt worse than his betrayal to her.

But the one thing to remember is that in the midst of all these things is where you’ll discover your love of reading. And later the urge to write. Every feeling, every passion, everything you’ll notice that is different between the two cultures you’ll be raised in helping you to create others of your own to share with others.
All will be well in the end.

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Gloria Oliver, slave to her feline and puppy masters, lives in Texas. She is the author of five fantasy and YA fantasy novels – “In the Service of Samurai”, “Vassal of El”, “Willing Sacrifice”, “Cross-eyed Dragon Troubles”, and her latest “Price of Mercy”. For sample chapters, free reads and other info please visit her website. She is a member in good standing with both EPIC and Broad Universe though has yet to work her way into the top list of Cat Slaves R Us.

Tags: YA, Zumaya Publications